1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to direction changing devices and more particularly pertains to a new lifting and steering assembly for permitting a vehicle to be turned in a small area.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A number of direction changing devices have been proposed for vehicles and other objects, for example U.S. Pat. No. 5,453,931 to Watts, Jr. provides a navigating robot that is capable of navigating across a surface to print a layout on the surface or perform the work at the coordinates provided which are preprogrammed into the robot which require a user to know where the robot is going to be and needs to go prior to programming. U.S. Pat. No. 4,657,463 to Pipes provides an automated guided vehicle that is used to transport loads from one predetermined location to another predetermined location thus requiring the route to be traveled by the vehicle to preprogrammed in the vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,938,305 to Park provides a direction changing apparatus for a vehicle that is positioned under the vehicle and extends downwardly to lift the vehicle off the ground and can slide the vehicle left or right in addition to rotating the vehicle around the axis of the apparatus to allow the direction of the vehicle to be altered in small areas may be destabilized if the vehicle is slid to the extreme left or right and is rotated which may cause the vehicle to tip and become unstable. U.S. Pat. No. 5,316,100 to Juan provides direction changing device for a handling trolley that is extended from the trolley and lifts the trolley from the surface and rotates the trolley to allow the direction of the trolley to be change in a limited space but may destabilize the trolley in that the device that changes the direction of the trolley requires the body of the trolley to compensate for the weight of the cargo being carried and my tip causing the cargo to shift and fall if the cargo is heavier that the body of the trolley.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,853,196 to Guest provides a self-propelling mechanism that uses a pair of feet that swing down to engage the ground and lift a the core drilling apparatus and slide it along the skids coupled to the core drilling apparatus and then allows the skids to be slid forward to allow the core drilling apparatus to be advanced along the surface. U.S. Pat. No. 6,202,774 to Claasen provides a module for transporting heavy loads that raise the load and allow the load to slide forward in a step-wise manner. U.S. Pat. No. 5,921,336 to Reed provides a walking structure device that has a plurality of lifting jacks for lifting a drilling rig structure and a plurality of jack pads that the drilling rig is advanced along when the drilling rig is raised to move along the ground surface. U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,519 to Patch provides a motive drive for heavy machinery that has a walking mechanism to lifts the heavy machinery on a support pad and then is walked forward to move the heavy machinery across the ground.
A disadvantage of some of the above listed patents is that the entirety of the object is lifted off the ground and thereby the direction changing device is thereby required to balance the object and if the object is unbalanced may cause the direction changing device to tip and possibly damaged the object.
In these respects, the lifting and steering assembly according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of permitting a vehicle to be turned in a small area.